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PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center is a 501(c)(3) organization. We are dedicated to protecting our air, water and open spaces. We investigate problems, craft solutions, educate the public and decision-makers, and help the public make their voices heard in local, state and national debates over the quality of our environment and our lives.

It’s 2016—we should be able to power our lives without harming the environment. We have the power to produce and consume energy and still enjoy healthy communities—and give our children and their children a livable future. That’s why we’re calling for a nationwide commitment to 100% renewable energy. It’s a big, bold goal, but it’s 100% possible.

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Solar power is clean, affordable and popular with the American people. The amount of solar energy installed in the U.S. has quadrupled in the last four years, and the U.S. has enough solar energy installed to power one in 20 American homes.

America’s solar progress is largely the result of bold, forward-thinking public policies that have created a strong solar industry while putting solar energy within the financial reach of millions more Americans.

Behind the scenes, however, electric utilities, fossil fuel interests and powerful industry front groups have begun chipping away at the key policies that have put solar energy on the map in the United States – often in the face of strong objections from a supportive public.

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59 percent of of the state’s streams, including those feeding the Delaware River, Susquehanna River and Pittsburgh’s Three, will gain federal protections under a final rule signed today by top Obama administration officials. The measure restores Clean Water Act safeguards to small streams and headwaters that have been vulnerable to development and pollution for nearly ten years.

In the summer of 1993, residents of the American Midwest experienced the most costly flood in the history of the United States.1 By the end of that summer, the Mississippi River in St. Louis was 20 feet above flood stage, and levee breaks in Illinois led to the inundation of thousands of acres of land. The flood claimed 48 lives and caused nearly $20 billion in damage.

Enough wetlands remain in the flood-prone areas of Pennsylvania’s to hold enough rain to cover Lackawanna County in more than a foot of water, according to a new report by PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center.

On the heels of the February 16 oil train explosion in West Virginia, the PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center and the FracTracker Alliance released a new study showing thatover 3.9 million Pennsylvanians live within the potential evacuation zone for an oil train accident.

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After our research helped shine a media spotlight on the health problems mercury can cause for young children and babies in utero, the Environmental Protection Agency ruled that power plants must reduce the amount of mercury they emit by 90 percent.

In conjunction with our national federation, we helped convince the Environmental Protection Agency to set smart new limits on the amount of smog-forming carbon pollution that new coal-fired power plants can emit – an important victory for the 836,880 adults and 228,593 children in Pennsylvania who suffer from asthma, which is exacerbated by smog.

Whether you’re kayaking in Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers, fishing in the Susquehanna, or walking along the Schuylkill, our rivers and streams are a big part of what makes Pennsylvania so special. For decades, we’ve held the line for our waterways and fought tooth and nail to protect them from polluters. But in 2013, we came closer than ever to our biggest clean water victory in decades when President Obama took a much-needed step to close loopholes in the Clean Water Act that give polluters free rein to exploit the waters we love.

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PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center gratefully accepts bequests, beneficiary designations of IRAs and life insurance, and gifts of securities to support our work. Your gift will assure that we can continue to protect Pennsylvania's air, water and open spaces for future generations.